PCI? We don't need no stinking PCI

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
or AGP apparently...



linkage.



<a href="http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16589.html"; target="_blank">Will Apple's Next Power Mac Pack New 3GIO?</a>



[quote]Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has a history of popularizing computer expansion standards. The company caused an explosion in the number of USB devices on the market when its original iMac took off, and it caused a similar uproar in the digital video community with FireWire.



Now, Apple may be poised to push another standard called 3GIO, widely heralded as the successor to PCI and AGP expansion slots. Those slots, located on a computer's motherboard, allow insertion of video cards, networking cards and so on to enhance the computer's capabilities.



Pundits have begun to speculate that Apple is planning to incorporate 3GIO into the much-anticipated revision of its aging high-end Power Mac architecture.





[A D V E R T I S E M E N T] A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Third Time a Charm



3GI0 stands for "third-generation input/output." Originally called Arapahoe (named for a workgroup that included Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intel and Microsoft), the standard is expected to start shipping with desktop computers in 2004. Development tools and specifications are likely to appear in 2003.



The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), of which Apple is a member, is attempting to push the 3GIO standard while retaining support for the still-emerging PCI-X standard. The group is telling users that PCI-X is optimized for high-end applications used on servers and workstations, while 3GIO is targeted toward general-purpose applications that run on desktops and mobile devices.



Need for Speed



According to the PCI-SIG, a number of upcoming technological developments will require a faster internal input/output scheme.



"Technologies such as CPU speeds that will exceed 10 GHz, faster memory speeds, higher-speed graphics, 1-Gigabit and 10-Gigabit LAN, 1394b, InfiniBand fabrics and others will drive the need for much greater internal system bandwidth," according to 3GIO product literature.



Apple already includes a direct bus to the system controller on current Power Mac G4 systems, providing sustained throughput of 215 Mbps. The company claims that bottlenecks in most other PC architectures cause a slowdown to 133 Mbps when using certain applications.



Current specifications for 3GIO show data running directly from an expansion device (such as a graphics card) through a memory bridge and into the CPU, avoiding any potential I/O bridge bottlenecks.



The PCI-SIG claims 3GIO sports an initial frequency of 2.5 Gb/s/direction, which is expected to increase as silicon technology advances to 10Gb/s/direction (the theoretical maximum for signals sent via copper wire). 3GIO purportedly also will feature 100 MB per second per pin data transfer, compared with AGP 4X's 10 MB per second per pin throughput.



HyperTransport Complement



AMD is developing its own high-speed interconnection standard, independent of 3GIO, dubbed "HyperTransport." This I/O standard, which AMD officials said is not intended to compete with either 3GIO or PCI-X, will deliver 12.8 GB/sec.



Apple is a member of the HyperTransport Consortium, lending credence to speculation that the company will choose to integrate some form of AMD's technology into its high-end systems. NVidia, which supplies virtually all graphics cards for current desktop Macs, is also a member of the HyperTransport Consortium.



Major announcements regarding HyperTransport and possibly 3GIO are expected to take place at the Networld+Interop conference, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from May 7th to 9th. &lt;http://www.ecommercetimes.com/images/end-nfn.gif&gt;

<hr></blockquote>
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 65
    [quote]Major announcements regarding HyperTransport and possibly 3GIO are expected to take place at the Networld+Interop conference, to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from May 7th to 9th<hr></blockquote>



    Interesting. That's right around the time of Apple's WWDC. WWDC has always been a venue for hardware and software announcements and demonstrations.



    [ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 65
    tjmtjm Posts: 367member
    [quote]Originally posted by Nostradamus:

    <strong>



    Interesting. That's right around the time of Apple's WWDC. WWDC has always been a venue for hardware and software announcements and demonstrations.



    [ 03-01-2002: Message edited by: Nostradamus ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually that's exactly the time of WWDC 2002 - May 6 - 10. :eek: Sounds extremely interesting...
  • Reply 3 of 65
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    Eventually Intel will replace PCI with 3GIO, so card makers will have to develop 3GIO cards. Since the Mac market is so small, Apple will be forced to adopt 3GIO in 2004 or so.
  • Reply 4 of 65
    [quote]Originally posted by wmf:

    <strong>Eventually Intel will replace PCI with 3GIO, so card makers will have to develop 3GIO cards. Since the Mac market is so small, Apple will be forced to adopt 3GIO in 2004 or so.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Right..., just the same as USB and FireWire...



    &lt;...something about giant simian testicles...&gt;
  • Reply 5 of 65
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 6 of 65
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Apple is a member of the HyperTransport Consortium, lending credence to speculation that the company will choose to integrate some form of AMD's technology into its high-end systems. NVidia, which supplies virtually all graphics cards for current desktop Macs, is also a member of the HyperTransport Consortium.

    <hr></blockquote>



    Nvidia is poised to release their second iteration of their Nforce chipset with support for PC2700 DDR memory, ATA133, and integrated G4MX graphics in addition to their already present support for hypertransport, integrated LAN, and integrated dolby digital sound.



    Perhaps Apple has liscensed Nvidia to produce chipsets for future Apple computers? Nvidia has proven they are able to adapt their Nforce technology to different platforms as is evidenced by their support of AMD's EV6 protocol for SocketA motherboards and Intel's GTL+ protocol in the Xbox. What's to keep them from making an MPX compliant version for the mac? This would bring the Mac to parity with the cutting edge of PC technology as far as motherboard technology.
  • Reply 7 of 65
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eskimo:

    <strong>



    Nvidia is poised to release their second iteration of their Nforce chipset with support for PC2700 DDR memory, ATA133, and integrated G4MX graphics in addition to their already present support for hypertransport, integrated LAN, and integrated dolby digital sound.



    Perhaps Apple has liscensed Nvidia to produce chipsets for future Apple computers? Nvidia has proven they are able to adapt their Nforce technology to different platforms as is evidenced by their support of AMD's EV6 protocol for SocketA motherboards and Intel's GTL+ protocol in the Xbox. What's to keep them from making an MPX compliant version for the mac? This would bring the Mac to parity with the cutting edge of PC technology as far as motherboard technology.</strong><hr></blockquote>

    it may be a possibility for the future, but is there isn't a problem with endian stuff ?
  • Reply 8 of 65
    I think that would be pretty awesome.. The problem of course, would be compatibility. Who makes cards that would support this format? As long as they could get at least ggrphics cards that do, I think it could be viable for the G5....
  • Reply 9 of 65
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Going to 3GIO before anyone else does would be a bad move, as you'd spend money on expensve controllers and stuff, without having any potential benefit for the customer, as long as nobody has any 3GIO cards available. (unless they made it downwards compatible, which I don't know).



    Apple will most likely adopt both PCI-X and 3GIO in the future, but most certainly not before Intel introduces it to its own chipsets.



    G-News
  • Reply 10 of 65
    [quote]Originally posted by G-News:

    <strong>Going to 3GIO before anyone else does would be a bad move, as you'd spend money on expensve controllers and stuff, without having any potential benefit for the customer, as long as nobody has any 3GIO cards available. (unless they made it downwards compatible, which I don't know).



    Apple will most likely adopt both PCI-X and 3GIO in the future, but most certainly not before Intel introduces it to its own chipsets.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Wrong. remember how much support SCSI had when Apple picked it up? how about ADB? USB, DB-15, DAV, NuBus, GeoPort, LocalTalk, ZIF, PDS ? how about _practically none_.



    Apple has gone it alone many times before(In fact. when Apple gave up it's independant ways for PCI and ATA. Apple lost nearly all of it's massive advantage over the other platforms. leaving only the CPU and the ROM chip to differentiate a modern Mac's motherboard from an equivalent, vanilla PC). the fact of that AMD and Intel are pushing for LDT né Hypertransport and Arapahoe(Respectively) will make Apple's task all the easier. the only difference between using it in their machines now. and waiting like a fat cow for everyone else to do it first. is that Apple would give everyone else in the PC industry a resounding *SPANK*. as well as re-affirming their innovative image.



    As for HyperTransport Vs. 3GIO. this is going to be just like <a href="http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/rdram.html"; target="_blank">DDR Vs. Rambus</a>, <a href="http://www.mackido.com/Hardware/USB2.html"; target="_blank">FireWire Vs. USB 2</a>, SCSI Vs. ATA and NuBus Vs. ISA. as usual. Intel's standard totally sucks wind.



    Arapahoe is pure fiction right now. meanwhile HyperTransport slots currently run at 6GB per second. and have been on the market(And by that. I mean that companies have been buying HyperTransport chips, designing <a href="http://www.api-networks.com/silicon/"; target="_blank">Products</a> around them, mass manufacturing and selling them on the open market) for about _two years_ now. and the revision slated for mid-2002 beats Arapahoe's(Extremely theoretical) top speed by 2Gb per second. so Apple could already have been tinkering with REAL, SHIPPING COMPONENTS FOR TWO YEARS if they've been using HyperTransport. as opposed to their parts being "likely to appear in 2003" for a clearly inferior standard.



    [quote]The group is telling users that PCI-X is optimized for high-end applications used on servers and workstations, while 3GIO is targeted toward general-purpose applications that run on desktops and mobile devices.<hr></blockquote>



    What a line of garbage <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> ! <a href="http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pci_x/"; target="_blank">PCI-X</a>. while about four times faster(1Gb/sec) than 64-Bit/66Mhz PCI. is still about 11Gb per second short of HyperTransport. and even Arapahoe beats it out by 9Gb per second. PCI-X's main advantage is that its pin compatible with other versions of PCI.



    The other one to beware of is <a href="http://www.intel.com/technology/agp/agp_draft9.htm"; target="_blank">AGP 8X</a>. it will run at only 2Gb/sec. which will also be way slower than HyperTransport and 3GIO. and try to weasel it's way in through pin compatibility too. plus. PCI-X and AGP 8X are _just now_ exiting the experimental stage. giving HyperTransport a MASSIVE lead over _everything_ that could possibly try to compete with it.



    So if you hear anyone mention 3GIO, PCI-X and/or AGP 8X in a positive manner. especially in comparison to HyperTransport. set em' straight.



    This is Apple's golden chance to massively leapfrog the rest of the industry. lets hope they don't blow it.



    Eric,
  • Reply 11 of 65
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    Umm, last time I checked HyperTransport was NOT a replacement for PCI. Eric, that link you provided supports this. According to those product schematics you linked to, HyperTransport is used to connect the PCI bus to the rest of the system. PCI-X and 3GIO are replacement technologies for the PCI bus/interconnect. HyperTransport isn't. In other words, HT and PCI-X/3GIO are complementary (not competing) technologies. HT's purpose is to enable greater bandwidth than is currently available between the various chipsets on a mobo.



    [ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Arty50 ]</p>
  • Reply 12 of 65
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 13 of 65
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    [quote]Originally posted by AirSluf:

    <strong>



    Different busses, different parts of the MB. No head to head competition, but synergistic when used together.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yes. I don't understand why we have to keep rehashing this. A few idiots in the media screwed this whole thing up a few months ago, but it's been discussed to death and the notion that these are competing techs has been debunked a million times since.



    [ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: Arty50 ]</p>
  • Reply 14 of 65
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    Apple does not innovate in hardware any longer, so they will not adopt this standard until they are forced to by the low availability of PCI and AGP cards. The way of Apple is to use slightly outdated technology to pad their profit margins, while using meaningless benchmarks to demonstrate that Macs are 2.3 times as fast as a 4 GHz Pentium beast.



    If Apple ever leads the way in motherboard design within the next 5 years, I'll suck my own dick!!!
  • Reply 15 of 65
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    [quote]



    If Apple ever leads the way in motherboard design within the next 5 years, I'll suck my own dick!!![/QB]<hr></blockquote>



    If it arrive, we will refresh your memory and some of AI members will ask you some proofs ... :eek:
  • Reply 16 of 65
    [quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:

    [QB]Apple does not innovate in hardware any longer [QB]<hr></blockquote>



    &lt;sarcasm&gt;

    wow, i couldn't agree more!

    &lt;/sarcasm&gt;



    "any longer"? like, not since they released USB & FireWire way ahead of most (if not all) other computer makers? Or when they moved to a unified motherboard architecture? (showing truly forward thinking) or, since they released a FULLY decked out laptop @ only an inch thick? or since they successfully brought to market the first DVD-R equiped machines (not to mention the complete solution for creating content and then mastering it). or not since they completely redefined what a desktop consumer machine should be?



    yeah, i guess you're right, apple hasn't released any innovative hardware in the past couple weeks...

    <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" />
  • Reply 17 of 65
    tjmtjm Posts: 367member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:





    Apple has gone it alone many times before(In fact. when Apple gave up it's independant ways for PCI and ATA. Apple lost nearly all of it's massive advantage over the other platforms. leaving only the CPU and the ROM chip to differentiate a modern Mac's motherboard from an equivalent, vanilla PC). <hr></blockquote>



    Originally, Apple built their computers around what they considered to be the best available technology. SCSI, was light-years ahead of any other external connectivity standard, for example, except that nobody cared in the PC world because they focused on internal devices. Most of the other now-discarded technologies were greeted similarly. Better = more expensive, and the PC world prefered cheap price over all else. What made Apple finally discard them was the constant whining and griping of critics and us, the customers. The complaint was that these technologies made Apple a de facto closed system, with upgrade or replacement parts difficult to find and expensive to buy. Although ATA was (is) an inferior technology to SCSI, Apple shifted to it because that's what their customers wanted (ATA drives are 1/2 to 1/3 the price of equivalent SCSI drives, for example - or at least they were at the time). So don't beat up on Apple for giving up on these technologies - it's what we, their customers, demanded they do.



    An unfortunate side effect of Apple's initial direction is the persistent myth that Macs use only proprietary parts - its memory, hard drives, or other parts couldn't be used in a PC and vice versa (my brother and sister both gave me this one last summer!). It also gave Apple a reputation for being "uppity" or catering to snob-appeal, which turned off a lot of PC users. Overall, I think going to industry-standard parts has been a positive thing.



    [ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: TJM ]</p>
  • Reply 18 of 65
    eric d.v.heric d.v.h Posts: 134member
    [quote]Originally posted by Arty50:

    <strong>Umm, last time I checked HyperTransport was NOT a replacement for PCI. Eric, that link you provided supports this. According to those product schematics you linked to, HyperTransport is used to connect the PCI bus to the rest of the system. PCI-X and 3GIO are replacement technologies for the PCI bus/interconnect. HyperTransport isn't. In other words, HT and PCI-X/3GIO are complementary (not competing) technologies. HT's purpose is to enable greater bandwidth than is currently available between the various chipsets on a mobo.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    [quote]Originally posted by AirSluf:

    <strong>Different busses, different parts of the MB. No head to head competition, but synergistic when used together.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    [quote]Originally posted by Arty50:

    <strong>Yes. I don't understand why we have to keep rehashing this. A few idiots in the media screwed this whole thing up a few months ago, but it's been discussed to death and the notion that these are competing techs has been debunked a million times since.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's just what they want you to think. in <a href="http://www.sibyte.com/mercurian/docs/whitepaper_ldt.pdf"; target="_blank">this Api NetWorks/Sibyte whitepaper</a> and <a href="http://www.hypertransport.org/downloads/whitepapers/HT_busarch.pdf"; target="_blank">this Api NetWorks executive summary</a>. they say that: "The 50-ohm impedance and differential signaling also permit trace lengths up to 24 inches, and they span board interconnects well." meaning that HyperTransport works perfectly well across the shattered pins and traces at the bottom of a PCB card.



    They also said that: "There is an ongoing effort with major connector companies to define a variety of connectors that can fit different price/performance parameters. More information on this topic will be available in 2001."



    And in a <a href="http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/HyperTransport_IO_Link_Whitepaper_25012A.pdf"; target="_blank">recent AMD whitepaper</a>. they discussed Plug ?n Play in it's session layer.



    The final clincher though. is on <a href="http://www.hypertransport.org/documentation/#q20"; target="_blank">AMD's online HyperTransport FAQ</a>. where they more cautiously echo the precise words of the Api NetWorks/Sibyte pieces by saying: "A HyperTransport connector has not been endorsed at this time; however, some members of the Consortium are exploring possible use of connectors for different applications."



    So why are they pretending that HyperTransport is an intra-board-only standard? darned if I know.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>&lt;sarcasm&gt;

    wow, i couldn't agree more!

    &lt;/sarcasm&gt;



    "any longer"? like, not since they released USB</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Intel thought up USB. and it took Apple three years to adopt it. although. if not for Apple. USB probably would have died the quiet death of VCDs in the US during the mid-90s. ever present and fully compatible. yet never used.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>& FireWire way ahead of most (if not all) other computer makers?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    For some strange reason Apple pretty much always treated FireWire like some sort of illigitimate child, After developing FireWire in 1994 Apple announced that all Macintosh's would support FireWire by 1996, They missed it completely.



    Meanwhile, Around 1997 Sony started shipping DV products like the VX-1000 Camcorder, Compaq released Presario's with FireWire on the motherboard, Sony followed suit soon after, And then the rest of the PC industry gradually came into the fold, Apple had publicly done nothing until they released the Apple FireWire Kit(A PCI card with three cables) in 1998, Finally, in 1999, Apple Computer, The company that thought of FireWire in the first place, Became pretty much the last company to put it on one of their motherboards.



    Prior to this, Apple didn't really encourage third party's to use it as much more than a glorified S-Video connector, And to this day about the only FireWire devices other than DV camera's you will see are storage peripherals, Like hard disk, Zip, Jaz, MO, DVD-RAM, CD-RW, Tape, And ORB drives(None of which are actually true FireWire drives, As they ALL use _bridge chips_, And usually ATA ones, Blech! Thusly so called FireWire drives are actually the equivalant of an ATA drive with an ATA to FireWire adapter hanging off the back).



    I have yet to see large numbers of FireWire based speakers, Printers, Devices that use small media(CF,SM,MMC,Clik!, MicroDrive,MD etc.) like digital still camera's, Portable music players, PDA's and memory readers, Microphones, TVs, Special purpose equipment control I/O's(Medical devices, Industrial manufacturing machinary, Scientific instruments etc.) and many others that seem to have been either ceded to USB or left with straight serial.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>Or when they moved to a unified motherboard architecture? (showing truly forward thinking)</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Dumping the contents of the ROM chip into ultra slow dynamic RAM instead of swapping the slower ROM chips they were using at the time for speedy static memory(Which. by the way. is seldom used in large amounts due to the fact of that it costs so much more than dynamic memory. but the fact of that the Mac ROM code is only about 6-8MBs makes static memory an excellant choice for small, frequently accessed data like is on most ROMs) chips. like the SRAM used in most CPUs as cache. was probably one of the worst moves Apple has ever done.



    And if you're refering to switching to a standard motherboard chipset across all lines. I think the PC industry has been doing that since about the day there were clones.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>or, since they released a FULLY decked out laptop @ only an inch thick?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    *Yawn*. as if Sony, Toshiba, Sharp and numerous others hadn't trampled all over them already. the PowerPC G3 is such a low energy/heat/footprint chip compared to every semi-recent Pentium or Kx ever placed in a laptop as to make Apple's design team look ridiculous for taking so long. and then to use one of the highest energy/heat/footprint chips ever employed by Apple. the G4. in their first &lt;=1" thick laptop. was completely absurd. the crowning insult is the fact that Apple STILL hasn't satisfied the subnotebook crowd(And one upped the Wintel industry) with a <a href="http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/pr/download/flash/2000_tour/portege_2000_tour.html"; target="_blank">_really_</a> tiny laptop.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>or since they successfully brought to market the first DVD-R equiped machines</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yuck. DVD-R. like CD-R before it. is about the most user unfriendly storage medium ever invented. Apple already had DVD-RAM drives in their G4s. which. aside from their far superior hard disc like user experience. also costed roughly $750 less than Apple's DVD-R drive at the time. and currently cost $250 less(PS: Don't believe the lies. all DVD-RAM discs are fully compatible with all 3rd generation or later DVD drives and set-top DVD players). also. DVD-RAM is the obvious master format in the new <a href="http://www.dvdforum.com/tech-dvdmulti.htm"; target="_blank">DVD-Multi</a> drives.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>(not to mention the complete solution for creating content and then mastering it).</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Although DVD Pro Studio is pretty much the same as the program Apple bought from Astarte. I'll have to admit that iDVD was(And is) the only really user friendly piece of DVD creation software. except for one point.



    For some strange reason. Apple left out the DVD-Audio features of Astarte?s software. despite the fact of that it had one of the first DVD packages capable of DVD-Audio authoring ever made. this would have been perfect to integrate into the Apple DVD Player, sorta mix that with iDVD. and then have it be an even better(24-bit, 192khz, 5.1 Dolby/DTS digital suround) answer to the "We missed the CD-RW boat" thing than iMus? er. iTunes.



    [quote]Originally posted by concentricity:

    <strong>or not since they completely redefined what a desktop consumer machine should be?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The new iMac. while the most incredibly cool AIO machine ever(If I hadn't bought my G4 already. I'd be having a VERY difficult time deciding whether or not to buy one of the new iMacs right on the spot). is still assembled out of the same old parts(Except for that arm ). Apple needs something new, fresh and unique. like. say. <a href="http://www.dti3d.com/products.asp"; target="_blank">this</a> or <a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/software/speech/mac/osx/"; target="_blank">this</a>.



    [quote]Originally posted by TJM:

    <strong>Originally, Apple built their computers around what they considered to be the best available technology. SCSI, was light-years ahead of any other external connectivity standard, for example, except that nobody cared in the PC world because they focused on internal devices. Most of the other now-discarded technologies were greeted similarly. Better = more expensive, and the PC world prefered cheap price over all else. What made Apple finally discard them was the constant whining and griping of critics and us, the customers. The complaint was that these technologies made Apple a de facto closed system, with upgrade or replacement parts difficult to find and expensive to buy. Although ATA was (is) an inferior technology to SCSI, Apple shifted to it because that's what their customers wanted (ATA drives are 1/2 to 1/3 the price of equivalent SCSI drives, for example - or at least they were at the time). So don't beat up on Apple for giving up on these technologies - it's what we, their customers, demanded they do.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Well _I_ certainly didn't ask for it. and even if everyone else did. I don't think a lot of Mac users liked it much afterwards(Serves em' right!). as Apple's market share has dropped since then from(Correct me if I'm wrong) about 27% clear down to around 3% nowadays.



    Have you ever considered how appealing the Quadra 700 would have been with an IDE hard drive, 5.12" floppy drives, 320x240 4-bit color graphics, 4-bit mono sound, PS/2 mouse(If you were lucky) and keyboard, 2 ISA slots(Probably full if you wanted graphics or sound), a parallel port, no networking at all and an extremely unhappy 68040 CPU? do you remember how far ahead the Mac OS was from DOS and Windows 3.1? do you recall how pathetic the 80286 was in comparison to our Motorola 680x0 CPUs? comparing a PC to a Mac was like putting a Model-T next to a <a href="http://www.ballard.com/trans_app.asp"; target="_blank">PS2000</a>.



    [quote]Originally posted by TJM:

    <strong>An unfortunate side effect of Apple's initial direction is the persistent myth that Macs use only proprietary parts - its memory, hard drives, or other parts couldn't be used in a PC and vice versa (my brother and sister both gave me this one last summer!). It also gave Apple a reputation for being "uppity" or catering to snob-appeal, which turned off a lot of PC users.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    If you were to swap a modern G4's ZIF slot for a Pentium's Socket7. and switch Apple's ROM chip for a Wintel BIOS chip. there wouldn't be so much as _one_ functional difference between it and an equivalent Wintel motherboard. quite truly. all that Apple makes now are wintel clones with PPCs and some flavor of UN*X on them.



    [quote]Originally posted by TJM:

    <strong>Overall, I think going to industry-standard parts has been a positive thing.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I think different. I don't want a Wintel box. I want a Macintosh.





    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Eric,



    [ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: Eric D.V.H ]</p>
  • Reply 19 of 65
    tjmtjm Posts: 367member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eric D.V.H:

    <strong>

    Well _I_ certainly didn't ask for it. and even if everyone else did. I don't think a lot of Mac users liked it much afterwards(Serves em' right!). as Apple's market share has dropped since then from(Correct me if I'm wrong) about 27% clear down to around 3% nowadays.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'll be sure to send a note to SJ to remind him to consult you before he makes any more strategic moves.

    At the time, Apple was losing $100s of millions of dollars per quarter, its market share had already plunged to single digits, and it was rapidly on its way to bankruptcy. Going to PCI and ATA and standard memory (PC66 on Beige G3) saved them a ton of money and helped them survive. It was a matter of change or die. The "cachet" of owning a Mac with its unique technologies wasn't going to last long in any event.

    [quote]

    <strong>

    If you were to swap a modern G4's ZIF slot for a Pentium's Socket7. and switch Apple's ROM chip for a Wintel BIOS chip. there wouldn't be so much as _one_ functional difference between it and an equivalent Wintel motherboard. quite truly. all that Apple makes now are wintel clones with PPCs and some flavor of UN*X on them.

    I think different. I don't want a Wintel box. I want a Macintosh.





    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Eric,



    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    At this point, I'd rather they did adopt a Wintel-clone motherboard. Their current one is so outdated it's ludicrous.



    Calm down for a moment, and think a bit. What is it that makes a Mac? For me, it's the ergonomics of the hardware and the software, particularly the Mac OS. Does it really matter what's inside the box? Would it run any differently if it had a solid gold case and platinum wiring? It's Apple's attention to detail in the system integration, their industrial design for the cases, and the ease-of-use in the software that make the quality of it. The technology used doesn't really matter. As long as it produces my beloved "Mac experience" they can have gerbils in a treadmill running it, for all I care.



    It's one thing to use off-beat technology just to "Think Different" when it is superior or equivalent, but much of the Mac's technology at that point was out-of-date and orphaned (i.e. NuBus and ADB). ATI, 3dfx, and nVidia would never have come out with Mac video cards if they were still running NuBus. Thanks to PCI (then AGP) we have access to first-rate video. The list goes on and on.



    As a "fer instance" on the relative costs, a couple years ago I bought an ATA card for my 7600 because I just couldn't see paying $350 for a 10 GB SCSI drive when I could get a 50 GB ATA drive for $120. Even after $100 for the ATA card, I was still over $100 ahead with 5x capacity. I can get memory for my G3 desktop dirt cheap because it uses PC100.



    So, I appreciate your sentiment - I like Macs because they ARE different . But if different = inferior or different = outrageously expensive (with no clear benefit), you're going to have a hard time broadening your appeal or even staying in business.



    [ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: TJM ]</p>
  • Reply 20 of 65
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    [quote]Wrong. remember how much support SCSI had when Apple picked it up? how about ADB? USB, DB-15, DAV, NuBus, GeoPort,

    LocalTalk, ZIF, PDS ? how about _practically none_.

    <hr></blockquote>



    You have to differentiate between the past and the recent past. ADB, NuBus and SCSI were selected because they were superior, and in the case of SCSI, already working on other systems.

    NuBus was just another standard that emerged out of the first experimenting phase of modern computer design, as was ADB and GeoPort. DAV definitely doesn't count as I have yet to see a single product that was ever released to the public for that slot.

    DB-15 is functionally identical to a normal VGA port, that was just a proprietary decision, not a quality over cost one. And for USB, as you probably know, Apple helped it make a breakthrough, but they didn't invent it (Intel did) nor did they introduce it (most PCs actually had USB about a year before the iMac was originally released, just that nobody knew about it.



    If you look 20 to 10 years back, you'll see that Apple had to develop and introduce new technology, because there was nothing suitable to meet their needs. In the recent past you'll soon notice that Apple just picked the best standards that were already available on other platforms, combined them and took out the hubbles of the road.

    Apple's implementation of PCI is wonderful compared to the PC counterpart (both in terms of performance and software support (for example we don't have to fiddle with IRQs).



    Apple hasn't been innovating in hardware in terms of developing itself, but they have been innovative in terms of making things actually usable (example USB and FireWire (partially).



    If Apple adopted 3GIO or similar now, totally replacing PCI, you'd have a system with a new standard that nobody supports until the PCs adopt it too. The days of small companies making extra hardware for the Mac (ie NuBus falvor cards of their products too) are over, companies no longer an afford extra tours.



    Wake up, the best thing Apple can do now is stay on top of the emerging standards, experiment with them and use the best ones for their machines, as soon as support from most sides is granted.



    PCI-X, if downwards compatible, is currently the only option that you could implement right away, without awaiting support. But then again we already have 64bit PCI slots that nobody supports either.



    Apple is not going to adopt 3GIO before they can be absolutely sure, that the companies that make PCI cards now, will continue making 3GIO cards. And that likely isn't going to happen before Intel hasn't got a chipset out that supports 3GIO.



    Of all the standard hardware Apple has introduced during the last 5 years, name me ONE that wasn't available on other platforms before.

    (FireWire is the only barely legal item)



    G-News
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